On the morning after the visit of Mr. Ashbel Norton, old Judge Danvers was opening his mail. He had spent a good part of the previous evening with Dr. Manning, and the remainder with a pair of the best “detectives” in the city. There was evidently something heavy weighing upon his mind, for he tore open his letters, one by one, and seemed to glance over them almost mechanically.

That is, he did so until, as he looked listlessly into one of them, he gave a sudden start and almost sprang to his feet.

That was a good deal for such a man, but his next movement was to ring his table-bell, and send out in all haste for a carriage, exclaiming:

“I’ll go to see him at once!”

Half an hour later, Major Montague had company of the most respectable sort in the reception-room of his compulsory boarding-house.

[Pg 289]The great iron-barred doors of the sombre building had opened almost obsequiously, to admit Judge Danvers, and the Major himself had been surprised at so prompt a response to his venturesome letter. Perhaps he failed to see that nothing could better have suited the Judge, if he cared to find him at all, than to find him under just those very circumstances.

“You can get me out of this, easily enough,” he said, after a brief conversation.

“Of course,” calmly responded the lawyer, “but I don’t see very clearly why I should meddle with it. I’m on the other side, you know.”

“What other side?” asked the Major.

“Why, Mr. Vernon’s,” replied the Judge. “So long as you’re locked up here I’m sure you won’t bother him.”

“Very true,” said the Major with a leer that was meant to be very knowing; “but as long as I’m here I’ll keep my mouth shut as to some things he’d like very much to know.”

“A year will settle that now,” replied the Judge, “if I don’t find it out sooner. Meantime, he’s doing very well.”

“He might lose a good deal in a year,” suggested[Pg 290] the Major. “I’m really Bar’s friend, and I wouldn’t like to see him do that.”

“Then tell me what you know!”

“Not till I’m out of this,” exclaimed the Major, with great energy, “and not till I see those papers. There’s things that nobody else can explain.”

“Well,” replied the Judge, thoughtfully, “I think I’ll go to work about you. Take two or three days, you know. And even then I’ll fix it so you’ll walk right back here again if you break your word.”

Major Montague must have felt even surer about the lawyer’s power in the premises than he did himself, so abjectly and earnestly did he labor to assure the Judge of the honesty of his intentions.

A few days in prison will sometimes have a wonderfully quieting and sobering effect, and the Major was just the sort of man to yield to such an agency.

Judge Danvers left the prison feeling as if he had somehow stumbled upon a very promising piece of work, but he had a good deal more before him that day, and he meant to be out of the city on the evening train.

[Pg 291]As for Major Montague, after the lawyer’s departure and his return to his own very narrow quarters, he sunk upon his cot bed with a remarkably sulky expression of countenance.

“I haven’t told him anything,” he muttered; “but he’s bound to know. I reckon I can always keep some kind of a hold on Barnaby, but there ain’t any ready money to be made out of the Judge. Never mind; I’ll see my way to something before I get through with ’em all. See if I don’t.”

Bar Vernon’s affairs were in good hands, beyond a doubt, and no man of Major Montague’s calibre was likely to “get up much earlier in the morning” than Bar’s self-appointed counsel.

Nevertheless, Bar had a good deal of a surprise in store for him.

The days had now followed one another until the regular time for “opening the Academy” was close at hand, and nearly all things were in readiness.

“Bar,” said Brayton, that night, after another tug at the Greek, “you and I can fix the rope on the bell to-morrow evening, can’t we, without calling in anybody else?”

[Pg 292]“Val and I can do it in ten minutes without troubling you at all,” replied Bar. “If you’ll give us the key in the morning we’ll attend to it right after breakfast.”

There was nothing dull about George Brayton, but he seemed to fall into Bar’s proposition as easily as Gershom Todderley had fallen into the mill-pond.

He must have had a good deal on his mind, indeed.

“Anyhow,” said Val, as they were getting ready for bed, “we must take Zeb Fuller along. It’s only fair after what he did the other night.”

“All right,” said Bar. “School begins next day after, and we must have Zeb pull with us or we’ll lose half the fun of the term.”

There was no difficulty in the morning in securing Zeb’s company.

The only trouble was in avoiding the additional presence of half the boys in the village.

The first consequence was that Zebedee had a good look at Bar Vernon’s invention, for which he had been aching, and the second was, that the rope was rigged over the big wheel for ordinary[Pg 293] “ringing” purposes, without any special disturbance of the extraordinary “tolling gear.”

The latter had to be unhitched, indeed, but was left all ready for use at any time when a high west wind should conspire with other favoring circumstances.

“I can hardly understand, even now,” remarked Zeb, as they were coming out of the Academy, “how it was that Brayton failed to discover that thing at the time, or else to hunt it out afterwards. Depend upon it, boys, there’s something the matter with George.”

He scarcely had the words out of his mouth before their path was crossed by the very hasty feet of Effie Dryer, though where she could be going was not so clear as Zeb thought it ought to be even to him.

One brief glance and a nod was all the notice she gave them, but in so doing she turned her face full upon them for a moment, and Zeb immediately turned to his friends with:

“Do you see that, boys? Euphemia’s been crying. That stepmother of hers! Or can it be old Sol himself has been cutting up? It’s a very distressing case.”

[Pg 294]“Why so?” asked Bar.

“Why?” said Zeb. “Well, because that young woman has no proper knowledge of the art of crying. The ............